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A study of ten urban female superintendents shows that although race and gender have played
a role in their careers, strong role models and family support helped them.

Women who become successful school superintendents have mentors and role models. According to
a dissertation presented at a conference of the Council
of the Great City Schools (CGCS), they also enjoy support from their families as they pursue
their career goals.

Dr. Marie Latham Bush reached those conclusions while conducting research for her doctoral dissertation
at the University of Toledo. According to some of the female superintendents Bush interviewed
for her study, a female school administrator has a tough time getting female subordinates and
other administrative peers to take her seriously. Generally, what people expect of female minority
administrators is different from what they expect of male administrators of all ethnic groups,
Bush found.

Bush presented her findings at the fall conference of the CGCS, an organization of superintendents
who work in large, urban school districts. At that time, 11 of the 54 members of the council were
women. Two declined to participate in the research, Bush said, and an interim superintendent was
added to the pool.

HYPOTHESIS CONFIRMED

Highlights of Study

For her doctoral dissertation, Marie Latham Bush studied ten female superintendents
of urban school systems and found some common characteristics:

*The superintendents are either African American or Hispanic.
*Nine of ten are between 50 and 55 years old.
*They have doctoral degrees in education.
*Nine of ten are married and better educated than their husbands.
*Eight of ten have children.
*All have strong family support.

Bush also listed four common obstacles female administrators who belong to minority
groups have to overcome:

*gender
*race
*lack of mentors
*lack of role models.

"It reaffirmed what I thought," Bush, who is African American, told Education World about her
research. "Race and gender do have an impact [on female superintendents' careers]. More
women would be superintendents if they had role models and mentors, Bush added. "They need mentors
to navigate the old boys' network."

The superintendents Bush interviewed had been classroom teachers before they moved into central
administration roles. Eight of the women had been elementary school principals, which is a typical
career path for women administrators, according to Bush. In contrast, about 60 percent of male
superintendents nationwide at one point had been coaches, according to information Bush discovered
during her research.

Although the women Bush interviewed said they did not think race and gender were barriers to
their selection as urban superintendents, they did say that both race and gender had affected
them at some points during their careers. It was unclear to them whether the issue had to do with
race, gender, or both, according to the report.

In her own career, Bush said, she has experienced some racial and gender issues but was more
surprised when people responded negatively to her because she is a woman. In the 1980s,
Bush was an assistant principal in a junior high school. When she attended an administrators'
meeting at which she was the only woman, only one person spoke to her, Bush said.

Bush also noticed the way promotions were awarded in some cases. Although a woman might have
an administrative title, she really had little authority.

WORKING HARDER

Two of the superintendents who participated in Bush's research talked with Education World.
One, Diana Lam, is the superintendent of schools in Providence, Rhode Island. She said that like
Bush, she was surprised that some people reacted more strongly because she is a woman than because
she is Hispanic.

"People expect you to work harder because you are a woman," Lam told Education World. "There
is a higher standard for women. In some school districts, I followed a male superintendent. Then,
all of a sudden, I couldn't do enough to prove my competency or commitment."

While principal of a Boston middle school, Lam said, she experienced the attitude that women
could not do the "tough" jobs in administration. After she hired a female director of instruction,
administrators told her the third member of her administrative team -- the assistant principal
-- had to be a man, even though she had selected an African American woman. In response, Lam filed
a complaint with the Boston human rights commission and left the position vacant. Several years
later, the commission ruled in her favor. "There were administrative teams that were all male,"
Lam noted, which no one questioned.

Darline Robles, who has been superintendent of the Salt Lake City (Utah) schools for seven years,
is also Hispanic. She said people can have unreal expectations for superintendents who are female
and members of minority groups -- particularly from other members of their ethnic groups. "They
think you are a queen and can make things happen by edict," Robles said. "They don't realize you
have to work within a political system."

When she was a principal, Robles explained, female teachers tended to treat her less formally
than they would a man and not take her as seriously when she issued directives. "I had one female
teacher tell me 'You're acting like the principal!'" Robles said. "I said, 'I am the principal.'
I had fewer problems supervising men."

ADMINISTRATION NOT A GOAL

Both Lam and Robles said that becoming a superintendent had not been a long-term goal but a
natural extension of their desire to help children. Lam said moving into administration did not
appeal to her at first, because she loved teaching so much. Then she was asked to be a district
supervisor. She thought, "My sphere of influence would be greater. I wanted to do for children
what someone had done for me."

Robles also said she never thought of being a superintendent when she began teaching: "Administration
was not a thought in the early 1970s." She received encouragement from the principal and assistant
principal in the school in which she taught because they were interested in developing teachers
into administrators. "In my fourth or fifth year as a teacher, I decided I wanted to be an administrator
-- I received mentoring from the building administration. I began thinking of being a superintendent
during my second principalship."

STRONG MENTORS AND SUPPORT

Both women said they had good mentors -- both male and female -- and solid family support on
the journey to the superintendent's office.

Robles said she was fortunate to work for a female superintendent when she was a principal and
also learned from a male superintendent with whom she worked. "At the time, I didn't realize the
model he was giving me," Robles said, speaking of the superintendent's relationship with the board
of education. "He taught me about respecting who [board of ed members] are as elected officials
and participating with the board as a team."

As for Lam, her husband and two children moved several times so she could take superintendent
positions in Iowa and San Antonio, Texas, before she accepted the Providence job. "My husband
has been very flexible," she said, "and I have two very adaptable children. Moving as much as
I did is unusual. Most women superintendents tend to stay in the same area."

Mentors also surfaced in the school districts and communities in which Lam worked. "They were
good listeners," she said. "They helped me qualify my thinking, provided encouragement, and helped
me remain focused on the mission of education, which is children."

PROGRESS NOTED

Bush, whose research brought information about women superintendents to CGCS attention, said
she is eager to see how the council might use it. Henry Duvall, director of communications for
the council, said he sees the group's role as publicizing the study, first through discussions
at the fall conference and now through posting information on its Web site, Urban
Educator.

Bush's research raised important issues, but urban school districts have a better record of
hiring women for upper management positions than the business world does, Duvall said. "There
probably still is a glass ceiling [in the educational field] but not as much as in corporate America,"
he said. "[Being a superintendent] is like being CEO -- only it may be harder."